Summary: | The relationship between the means for obtaining evidence and the use of their results represents one of the most problematic profiles of the criminal procedure code, on which are measured the basic values of the whole system. This dualism shows really delicate features in the wiretaps matter, where a serious offense to the communications secrecy and to privacy ensures extremely effective investigative results; the identification of an acceptable balance between fundamental rights protection and criminal investigation needs is therefore extremely difficult. In this framework are sketched both the regulation on the unusability of unlawful interceptions (art. 271 c.p.p.) and the one which determines the use prohibitions of wiretaps settled up in other proceedings (art. 270 c.p.p.). After an overview of the state of the art and of the latest jurisprudential approaches to the topic, the Authors – also in the light of the new technologies at the service of public authorities and of the reforms that have recently interested the matter – wonder about the effects that the non-usable proof may have on the evidence it helped to acquire.
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